Captain Kyle Luc accepts a donation from Duane Chipley with Affinity Credit Southeast District CouncilThe Estevan Fire and Rescue Department showed off their new piece of equipment designed to fight fires on any terrain.

"The Kabota unit itself with full emergency lighting package, full pump, 75 gallon water tank, Stokes basket carrier," described Captain Kyle Luc. "We've put some of our own hand tools that we purchased through the association."

"It gets us into places that aren't accessible with our great big trucks. You have these trucks that have 800 gallons of water on them and you take them into fields and sometimes it's wet. It doesn't take long before you're stuck. At least with this unit, we can go anywhere."

The ATV which cost around $50,000 to purchase can be equipped with either wheels or tracks.

"I've noticed lots of times, you get out into areas west of town, it's rocky and it's hard to get through. We decided to go with the tracks on it too so we have accessibility wherever we need to go."

Another benefit of the tracks is the ability to use the ATV year round, even in snow.

"If we have to go out and assist city police or RCMP, emergency medical services in wintertime, we can go out. We have the Stokes basket carrier that we can use on the back and we can help with rescues or whatever they need."

"We do have one unit now but it's getting a little tired, it's not a tracked unit like this one. So it does make things nicer to know that we have this tool in the toolbox."

Affinity Credit Union Southeast District contributed $10,000 and the Estevan Kinsmen committed $10,000 over five years.

"And we had our Estevan Firefighters Association 50/50, that's the one we drew last year at Neil Kish's golf tournament. That money went there as well. And then we've had a couple local companies in town that helped us out. A big thanks to Dynamic Signs and Signal Direct for their help as well."

"We still have some fundraising that we'd like to do for tools and other things to help make it better equipped but the money we have now is for the unit. It's ready to fight fires with some equipment we already have that we can put on it."

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